The Laid Off IT Guy! What To Do During Second Round Interviews

Congratulations on getting invited back! The second round interview is your golden
opportunity to win the job. To have made
it this far in the interview process you have likely survived a phone screen
and maybe an initial face-to-face meeting. For the employer to ask you back for a second time, you’ve obviously
impressed them with your abilities, and now they just need you to validate that
you are the best person for the job.

You know now that you are one of the finalists for the
position. They are going to be
scrutinizing you even more closely. You passed
the test for their general rounds of questioning. You seem to possess the general
characteristics that they are looking for skill-wise for the role that you’ve
applied for. The second round interview
is about how you will fit in with the company. They’ll be looking closely at your personality, management style, if
applicable, and overall attitude in determining if you’ll be able to get along
with your teammates, your superiors and subordinates.

They’ll also dig deeper into your technical abilities and
ask finer point questions about some of your past accomplishments. They know what they need done, and they’ll ask
questions that mirror problems they’ve had in the past to see how you will
respond. I’ll give an example. Recently I was asked about how I would go
about dealing with a person on a project that was not keeping up with their
workload. I paused briefly to collect my
thoughts and said, “I’d be direct with them.
I’d privately meet with them and tell them that we have a tight deadline
to meet and that their part of the project was important to the overall success
of the project and that I needed them to focus on getting their part of the
work back on track.” That is exactly
what they wanted to hear. They’ve
obviously experienced pain around that happening before, and my answer was what
they were looking for. It should be no
surprise for me to report that I’m being invited back for a second round
interview with this company. Wish me
luck!

Knowing that I’ve got a second interview with this company
later this week prompted me to write this blog post. I’ve been fortunate to make this, usually
final, round of interviews with three other companies over the past two months, yet I
haven’t won the role. I always try to
learn from my prior experiences and find out what I might have said or done (or
not said or not done) to lose out on the opportunity. In the first two scenarios I learned that my
experiences didn’t mirror what they were looking for. In the last scenario, however, I had exactly
what they were looking for. The concern
they had with my ability in the role was keeping me happy. They saw that I’d want to be promoted, potentially threatening the person that would have been my manager, certainly
not verbally or physically, but in my prior management accomplishments. I
think that I turned on my charm too strong and should have been more focused on
how I would succeed in the current role rather than share my aspirations beyond
the current position. That’s a mistake
that I’m going to learn from and share with you to learn from, too.

For this most important second, and hopefully, final round
of interviews, be yourself! Be
honest. Admit that you make mistakes.
Someone that appears too perfect is hiding something. You want to let your personality show
through. You want to make a genuine
connection with everyone that you encounter in your interview process from the
receptionist to the owner of the business. You never know whose opinions will be considered when it comes time to
make the hiring decision. I make the
assumption that anyone that I’ve talked to at the company has a vote, and I make
sure that I make a favorable impression upon everyone that I speak to at the
company.

Lastly, be prepared. Understand the company history, its products and services. If you know the names of the people
interviewing you, look up and study their bios, either on the company website or
LinkedIn. It can’t hurt to have read the
company mission and value statements and be able to incorporate those key
objectives into your conversation. Make
sure to ask good questions, too. You are
checking them out as much as they are checking you out. You want to be sure that the company is a
good fit for you, as well. Good luck!

Your comments at the bottom of the page are always
welcome. You can also write to me at my
email address below and I’ll get back to you. Best of luck to you on your search!